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Part of
Risk Discourse and Responsibility
Edited by Annelie Ädel and Jan-Ola Östman
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 336] 2023
► pp. 65–87

Chapter 3
Framing risk metaphorically

Changes in metaphors of COVID-19 over time in Japanese

ORCID logo | Kobe University

As a case of the metaphorical framing of risk, this chapter aims to explore metaphors of COVID-19 in Japanese, focusing on changes in metaphorical sources over time and their social backgrounds based on an analysis of metaphorical expressions in utterances directly quoted in newspaper articles. The study is based on 2,593 newspaper articles that include the keyword koronauirusu ‘coronavirus’. The three principal metaphor types found were opponent in war framing, natural phenomenon in disaster framing, and path in journey framing. The temporal change in the number of examples of each metaphor was closely linked to the “waves” of new infections. The results suggest that a temporal analysis of metaphorical framing can lead to a deeper understanding of perspective changes in risk discourse.

Keywords: metaphor, discourse, framing, COVID-19, pandemic, Japanese, risk, cognitive linguistics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methods
    • 2.1Material
    • 2.2Identification of metaphors
    • 2.3Description of metaphors
  • 3.Trends in metaphorical framing
  • 4.Changes in metaphors over time
    • 4.1Risk as opponent
    • 4.2Risk as natural phenomenon
    • 4.3Risk as path
    • 4.4Metaphorical framings of responsibility
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.336.03kom
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